


the truth of which we do not speak

by iihappydaysii



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Unrequited Love, because this technically canon compliant, brianna tries humor to feel better, doesn't last long - Freeform, if you mix the show and the books together, jamie does not like roger, jamie squishes down any bubbly feelings for LJG, set around the end of season 4, the jamie/john is subtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22765261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iihappydaysii/pseuds/iihappydaysii
Summary: Jamie returns from trying to find Roger to discover that his daughter is engaged to Lord John Grey. He is, frankly, not pleased.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Lord John Grey
Comments: 20
Kudos: 194





	the truth of which we do not speak

Jamie was exhausted. He’d been walking and riding for months and months, from North Carolina to New York and back again. All for nearly nothing. They’d saved Roger Mackenzie, but when he’d found out Brianna was pregnant and likely with Bonnet’s child, he’d wanted to leave.

Now, Brianna was heartbroken, unwed and with a newborn child. Jamie had no idea how to fix any of it.

“It is regretful about Mr. Mackenzie,” Aunt Jocasta said. “But at least Brianna will have a husband.”

Jamie felt his brow furrow as he turned to look at his aunt. “What are ye talking about?”

“Your daughter. And I truly dinna ken how she managed it, especially with child. Marriage to a Lord,” Jocasta smiled, sighing. “And handsome one at that, so I’ve heard.”

“Lord?” Jamie inquired, his body preparing for a threat he did not yet fully understand. “What Lord?”

“Why John Grey,” she replied.

Blood rushed from Jamie’s face and hands to his heart, making it run wild in his chest. Had he heard his aunt correctly? He couldn’t have. John Grey wouldn’t… there would be no reason for him to…

“Jamie,” his aunt’s voice a soft, feathery thing. “Are ye feeling well?”

He was not feeling well. He was feeling an iron hot fury. “Where is he?” Jamie growled, low enough that his throat ached.

“I believe he’s upstairs.”

Jamie pounded past her, not stopping to converse farther as she called out for him again. He needed to speak with Grey immediately.

These last months had been utter disaster followed by utter disaster. How much was a man expected to endure?

At the top of the stairs, Jamie turned left to see an open door in the hallway. Instinct told him it was worth a try. He strode forward with a wild speed to the door where he discovered his instincts had not failed him.

Lord John Grey was stood by the window, clad in charcoal grey, his chestnut hair pulled back in a deep blue bow. His hands were clasped behind his back, as he often stood. At the sight, Jocasta’s words returned to Jamie.

_A handsome one at that, so I’ve heard._

Another gust of fury surged in his chest and Jamie shouted, “What’s the meaning of this?”

John Grey pivoted toward him with a sharp quickness, then he smiled that glossy, familiar smile. “You’re home. It’s so good to see you.”

Jamie stomped forward. “I wish I could say the same about ye. I sent ye here to look out for my daughter and instead, ye, ye take advantage—“

“Jamie, that’s not—“

“I trusted you,” Jamie snarled, no more than a few steps away from the man, close enough to smell him—like rosemary and lemon—like always. It made Jamie even more furious. “I dinna understand. Are ye worried people will realize you’re-“

“Da, stop it,” came Brianna’s voice behind him. “I was the one who asked him to marry me.”

Jamie turned away from Lord John towards his daughter. Her eyes were still swollen from tears, though she’d stopped crying. Her hands were hidden in the pockets of her green dress and her hair was a wild mane of fire. She was truly his daughter.

“Brianna,” Jamie spoke through his teeth. “I understand why ye would be smitten with Lord John, but tis not a good match, and,”—Jamie glared at John—“he shouldn’t have agreed to this.”

Brianna’s gaze shifted to John and she drew up her shoulders and her chin. “Why wouldn’t it be a good match? He’s kind and gallant. He’s a lord from a wealthy family. And,” She gave John another look, then returned to Jamie. “Have you seen him?”

Jamie turned to John briefly as if to check, though he didn’t know what he was checking for. Only that the checking alone made his cheeks burn. He looked back at his daughter. “That’s entirely besides the point.”

Brianna put a hand to her heart. “But I love him, Da.” Her voice was pitched higher.

Jamie stood there, blinking. She loved him? That was… and why the hell did they spend months searching the woods for damn Roger Mackenzie if she was just going to fall for the first handsome man who—

“Brianna,” Lord John stepped forward. “Stop torturing your father.” He frowned at her disapprovingly, but gently, then said to Jamie. “Your daughter has an unusual sense of humor.”

So, she wasn’t serious about having fallen for Lord John?

John seemed to realize his continued confusion because he lowered his voice and said, “She knows” in what Jamie imagined to be an intent to clarify.

“Knows what?”

Brianna stepped forward and whispered, “That I’m not his type.”

_Not his type? Type? What did she mean by…_

_“Oh…”_ he spoke aloud as realization dawned on him.

Brianna somehow knew John was… that he preferred men? But if she knew this why on earth were they—he felt queasy at the thought—betrothed?

“Then… why?” he asked.

“That _is_ why. I didn’t want to say yes to someone who would expect something from me, and someone who wouldn’t let me go, if Roger...”

“Did you find Mr. Mackenzie?” John asked Jamie, as if a realization had finally dawned on him as well.

“Aye.”

Tears misted Brianna’s eyes again, the earlier humor gone as quickly as it came. She looked at John Grey. “I guess sometimes good does factor into it,” she replied. The words were clearly directed at him, imbued with a meaning that belonged only to the two of them. She then turned to Jamie. “Have you seen Mama?”

“In the kitchen, last I saw.”

She shut her eyes, allowing a single tear to escape down her cheek. Brianna caught it with the back of her hand, gave a small curtsey, then left the room.

After standing in a momentary silence, Jamie reached for the door, shutting it. “I should apologize for reacting as I did, without trusting ye to explain. These months have not been easy, and I... I am so worried about my daughter.”

“Of course you are.” John spared him a warm smile. “What happened to her was... horrific doesn’t even begin to express it.” He frowned now, looking down at his boots. “I know, firsthand, how an experience such as that can haunt you, and she is left with a far more permanent reminder.”

Jamie let out a breath and kept his voice as low as he could. “John, you were..” —he tried to think of the proper way to say it—“…violated?”

John shut his eyes briefly, the nodded. “In the army, when I was young. I don’t know who did it. It was dark and he came up behind me. The worst part of it is I had to go every day with the knowledge that he could be anyone, that we could be acquaintances, friends even.”

Jamie considered this for a moment, strangely overcome. He felt compassion for what his friend had suffered. He felt anger, allowing himself to imagine snapping the neck of this faceless man, but he also felt commiseration and a kind of gratitude that wasn’t exactly gratitude but was something like it.

He’d never imagined not knowing Jack Randall’s name, not being able to recognize his face. Not having a target to aim that vicious, swirling pit of hate that had boiled inside him.

“I never counted myself lucky for knowing the identity of my… attacker, but maybe I should. At least, I had the hope of revenge.”

Darkness moved across John’s face, and something unnamed and terrifying flashed in his eyes. “Someone hurt you like that.” His hands curled into fists. “Who is he? Is he still alive? I could… do _something_.”

Jamie could not help but smile at the way John jumped to protect him, as he’d once stepped forward to protect Claire. Even though she’d never truly been in danger, it was that fact that had kept Jamie from hating John, even when he had wanted to.

“You’re a good friend, John, but he’s dead. I killed Jack Randall at Culloden.”

John’s eyes widened. “ _Captain_ Jack Randall?”

“Did ye ken the man?”

“No, I’ve never met him,” John replied. “I’ve seen him in passing, however. He was—obviously—around Scotland at the time I was. Hector knew him though, and he had nothing but terrible things to say about him.”

For the briefest moment, Jamie allowed himself to imagine John’s unseen attacker had been Jack Randall and he’d been able to get justice for them both at the battlefield of Culloden.

Even that though, felt like such a small gain for what they’d both lost to war that day. He, Claire and Brianna and John, his Hector. Though Providence had returned his loss in part, though not the loss of time, John would never receive that same gift. It shattered Jamie’s heart that his daughter would now know a version of that same pain—a curse brought upon her by Stephen Bonnet and a man who… was so not like the man standing before him.

He thought that a brave and steadfast man of his word like John—though _not_ John—would be far more deserving of his daughter than Roger Mackenzie.

Jamie sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with this thumb and forefinger as he sat down on the bed. “I dinna ken what we’re going to do now that that coward Roger’s abandoned her.”

“We could go through with the wedding,” John said, sitting down beside him on the foot of the bed. “You do know I mean nothing by it but to ensure her protection?”

Of course that was all John Grey had ever intended. After all these years, after the loving father John has been to Jamie’s son, he was ashamed that he’d let anger get the best of him and believed otherwise, even for a moment.

“Aye. I ken. But I dinna think I can ask that of ye. It isn’t right.”

Jamie had asked so much of the man, and knowing what he knew, it had never felt right. It had too often felt like taking advantage.

“It’s strange, I know, given the circumstances, but it would ensure your grandson a title.”

John Grey was not wrong. He was a lord and if he and Brianna were married, then his grandson would be entitled to all the benefits therein, not to mention, it would secure Brianna benefits as well.

“John, I dinna see how this can be an option. Ye have to see the problem.”

“I do. That’s why I said no when she first asked.”

Jamie nodded. “It would be troublesome in regards to William.”

“There is our son, yes. But he’s not why I at first refused.” John let out a breath, shutting his eyes, visibly steeling himself. “The reason I told her no is because of the truth of which we do not speak and that you do not believe is possible.” He looked at Jamie. “I told her no because I am in love with her father.”

Though Jamie had known it for a while now, the words had never been spelled out so plainly before him. After the brutish way Jamie had acted at times over the years, he understood the courage it had taken John to share this now. John Grey was a good man and a rare man and as small and futile of a gesture it had been, Jamie felt himself suddenly glad that he’d once kissed this man, whose lips had tasted like his afternoon tea.

“I do believe ye, John.” Jamie hesitated, but laid his hand on John’s as John had once laid his hand on Jamie’s. He squeezed, then rubbed his thumb across the man’s skin. “I ken what I once said, but over the years, I have been witness to what it means to be someone ye love and though I cannot return it in the same way and I dinna deserve it, I _am_ grateful for it.” With a final warm squeeze, which was met with one in return, Jamie pulled his hand away.

“Right now, we need to take care of Brianna,” John said. “Whatever that looks like.”

 _We,_ Jamie appreciated that. Knowing that he was not alone. That both his children had another good man willing to fight for them. Still, Jamie hoped one day that John would find someone… a man… who truly deserved him, though Jamie did wonder, as he sat there silently besides John Grey, if such a man could possibly exist.


End file.
